Today we face a choice, one that Fromm anticipated all those years ago. “We are at the crossroads:,” he wrote, “one road leads to a completely mechanized society with man as a helpless cog in the machine—if not to destruction by thermonuclear war; the other to a renaissance of humanism and hope—to a society that puts technique in the service of man's well-being.” I believe that the path of humanism and hope outlined by Fromm is our chance to rebuild the world for human beings, rather than machines. It only takes us imagining a better world and then advocating for it.
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The Humanism of Star Trek: What We Can Learn from the Final Frontier
In all, I hope you’ve learned a little bit about the philosophy of Humanism and that these episodes from Star Trek have given you much food for thought. For today, humanity is at a crossroads. We can either give into our hatreds and destroy our future, or strive to be our better selves and seek the stars. I, for one, am an optimist, guided by a resolute commitment to the dignity of humanity and our capacity for good. That optimism, that sense of wonder at our collective future, that steadfast belief in our progress— these are values that I gained from Star Trek, and broadly, from humanism. Every day, in how we live our lives, we should cherish diversity, argue for equality, and strive towards making a better world. We will stumble along the way, making mistakes and experiencing setbacks, but as long as we learn from them and grow in our wisdom, we will ultimately lead lives that are full of love, learning, and longing. As Gene Roddenberry said, “It is the struggle itself that is most important. We must strive to be more than we are. It does not matter that we will not reach our ultimate goal. The effort itself yields its own reward.”
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“Steadfast Even in Persecution”: Voltairine de Cleyre and the Legacy of Thomas Paine
American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre carried the torch of freethought and radicalism exemplified by revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine, an iconoclasm infused with deep moral righteousness and an unrepentant sense of individualism. She defined her struggle for a stateless society in many of the same terms that Paine defined the fight for American independence, emphasizing political liberty, individual rights, equality, and mutual cooperation. She also stressed the importance of his character in her work. de Cleyre wrote of Paine that “he stood firm, proclaiming what he believed, not counting the cost. We may not believe as he; most of us do not. But that is the man we love: who has something in him superior to the judgments of men; who holds steadfast—steadfast even in persecution, even to death.” Likewise, we may not always agree with the convictions of Voltairine de Cleyre, but her own steadfastness echoed the legacy of America’s most underappreciated, and perennially misunderstood, founding father.
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Michael Brooks: Against the Web
Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right (2020, zer0 Books) gives us Michael Brooks’ uncompromising, hilarious, and brilliant analysis of the Intellectual Dark Web from a left perspective. He lays out for the reader all the problematic, insidious, and frightening aspects of the IDW and how we as leftists and socialists should respond to them. He ends the book with an optimistic message of humanism, universalism, and cosmopolitanism invigorated with class-conscious politics and a willingness to call to task the regressive tendencies of this new, but in some sense very old, configuration of the right.
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“The Eternal Yea to Life”: The Radical Humanism of Emma Goldman
During her many years of activism, anarchist intellectual Emma Goldman wrote for a variety of publications, including Mother Earth, a magazine she founded in 1906. Her writing championed free speech and expression, free love and open relationships, anarchism, the rights of labor, education, birth control, and criticisms of religion. This essay will explore Goldman’s ideas about atheism and how they fit into her larger ideological framework. As her writings will show, three core themes permeate Goldman’s work: strong advocacy for individual freedom, rejection of Christianity, and the defense of atheism. In all, Emma Goldman’s radical atheism was rooted in her love of humanity, and while the term didn’t exist then, that made her a deeply committed humanist.
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Anxiety, Kierkegaard, and Me: Living and Thriving with Nervousness
Anxiety is a concept that is nearly universally experienced but almost universally misunderstood. It is not plain nervousness, like when you stop abruptly at a stop light or surprisingly run into an ex-partner or an in-law. For me and many others, it is a constant, pervasive dread that permeates our very existence. A couple of years ago I realized that my anxiety was beginning to affect nearly every aspect of my life, from work and relationships to even my ability to sleep at night. It was here that I began my own investigations into anxiety, reading and studying as much as I could on the subject. From learning about Buddhism to Psychoanalysis and everything in between, I really didn’t crack the “anxiety code” until I discovered a nineteenth century philosopher who wrote a pioneering book on the subject in 1844.
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Essentialism and Humanism: Decluttering Your Life and Finding Your Purpose
I’ve learned about a philosophy of life that has completely reshaped my thinking about what it means to live well. It’s a lifestyle focused less on the amount of things, tasks, and relationships we accrue and more on the quality and intentionality of things, tasks, and relationships we bring into our lives. In short, it’s about finding what is essential for you to be the best version of yourself that you can be.
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